


a candle at my chest

by skvadern



Category: The Haunting of Hill House (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Comfort Sex, Episode 3: Touch, F/F, mentioned csa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27270181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skvadern/pseuds/skvadern
Summary: She knows what Theo wants but is too proud to ask for. A reminder that there are other people in the world, that she’s still in the world too.Trish offers what comfort she can.
Relationships: Theodora "Theo" Crain/Trish Park
Kudos: 61





	a candle at my chest

**Author's Note:**

> this has been sitting in my drafts for fucking forever; it was going to be a longer piece but i think it stands handsomely on its own feet.   
> title from night terror by laura marling

“Would you like to talk about your day, or would you like to come to bed?”

Phrased like that, with that crack in Theo’s voice, it’s barely even a question.

And dammit, Trish knows what she should reply. She’s done this so many times, with so many women, that it’s gone from being something her friends counselled her over to just being another in-joke. Patricia Park, fucked-up-queer-women magnet. Inevitable as gravity.

Trish has always believed that the easiest way to fuck yourself over is to ignore your faults, and she takes careful note of hers, of every bad decision she makes. In this instance, staying would be a bad decision. The worst she could make right now, for herself, her own mental health. Staying, getting into Theo’s bed, wiping Theo’s tears from her handsome face and curling around her like the heat of her body could weld this poor woman’s cracks shut, seal her up good as new.

Trish is done trying to fix people who can’t be helped. She is, swear to fuck she is.

But.

What kind of monster would walk away from a woman who’s just saved a girl from being _raped_ by her _foster dad,_ who is still not happy because despite the feat of intuition and competency and incredible heroism she’s just performed, she’s convinced she didn’t do enough? What kind of psychopath listens to a story like that and just…goes?

How can she leave Theo here, in her empty bed in what is obviously a guest house, outside a funeral home – a _funeral home_ , for fuck’s sake – her hands pale and perversely naked without those weird-ass gloves, all alone in the dark?

There’s been enough nights where Trish has buried her anxieties and guilt in someone else’s soft, warm skin, that she knows what Theo wants but is too proud to ask for. A reminder that there are other people in the world, that she’s still in the world too. That she’s still alive, alive enough to need and ache and come.

Coming closer, reaching to cradle Theo’s cheek, doesn’t feel like a choice so much as another inevitability. She has to touch Theo, offer what comfort she can. She can’t _not_ , not and stay the same person she knows she is – faults and bad decisions and all.

Afterwards, Theo doesn’t cry anymore. She just stares blankly at the ceiling, at Trish, like she doesn’t know how they got there.

She doesn’t try to put her gloves back on. At the time, Trish counts that a success – apparently Theo has decided she doesn’t mind Trish-germs.

Later, after Hill House, when Theo starts leaving her gloves off more and more until she’s almost never wearing them in the house unless she’s forgotten to remove them at the door, Trish will recognise that first gloveless night for what it was; Theo floating away from her, so far and so lost she’s barely a Theo anymore, none of that gorgeous prickliness and cat-like aloofness. Just lost, and alone, and nothing.

That night, Trish just curls up, facing her, and traces her messy curls until Theo’s eyes finally droop and close, and then she slips out, quiet with the dawn light, leaving Theo to sleep alone.

Like taming a stray cat, she thinks to herself, starting her car and wincing at how loud the engine turns in the still, clear fall-morning air. Can’t trap it, can’t force it or crowd it. You can only do so much, then you have to let it come to you.

( _Oh, I’m not even a person now? I’m just a what, mangy stray tabby?_ , Theo asks with mock outrage, beer dangling from her hand as Trish reclines comfortably on her tummy.

Shirley squints, then nods decisively. _Yep, definitely a cat. In and out of the trash cans every night._

_Oh my God,_ Steve says, _of course she is. Everything makes so much sense now!_ and Trish giggles, and presses a kiss to the smooth bare skin she’s been trusted with.)


End file.
